Movie Trailer Power Rankings: 'Gone Girl' Tops Our Kick-Off List

The cliche is that the best part of going to movies is watching the trailers. Or rather, it used to be, back when trailers weren't widely available on the web and the movies weren't a monument to Jean-Paul Sartre. But trailers remain pretty great, and with promotional campaigns getting more and more extended, we spend a lot of time looking at the same ones. Which is why the best ones deserve to be lauded.

Every week here at The Wire, we're going to bring you an up-to-date ranking of the best, most effective trailers out there. New ones will attempt to knock the old ones off their perch, and, inevitably, our enthusiasms will wax and wane. Our methodology involves staff-wide rankings and YouTube views, blended together with the Colonel's herbs and spices. What we're trying to say is: if you want trailers, you came to the right place.

This Week's Trailer Debuts

Lynn Shelton's hot streak after the excellent Humpday and Your Sister's Sister cooled a bit after Touchy Feely, and now she's back with Laggies, wherein Keira Knightley adopts an American accent to play an arrested adult who deals with her stalled-out life by hanging out with Chloe Grace Moretz, as sure a sign that things have gone awry as anything.

A huge hit out of the Cannes Film Festival, Xavier Dolan's Mommy got a Canadian release date (September 19th in Dolan's native Quebec) and a very American trailer, marshaling the musical talents of Ellie Goulding and One Repubic in an effort to make you watch something French and melancholy.

Movie Trailer Power Rankings as of July 18, 2014

10. Guardians of the Galaxy

The wisecracky tone set by Chris Pratt promises a refreshing spin on the superhero movie. The tie-ins to the greater Avengers universe promises a good payoff for Marvel people. The "Spirit in the Sky" and "Hooked on a Feeling" song cues let your dad know that, talking raccoon or no, he might be into this too.

9. Lucy

When Lucy accesses 35% of her brainpower, she's able to talk to animals. At 51%, she can purchase concert tickets through Ticketmaster before they sell out. At 68%, she can recite Infinite Jest from memory. At 98%, she can access the Academy Awards vote totals.

8. Foxcatcher

It's gonna be a big year for jut-out chins, you can tell. You can just tell.

7. This Is Where I Leave You

This clip doesnt do much to alleviate any Jason Bateman fatigue you might be feeling. And any movie that promises to boil down Jane Fonda's role to a pair of "bionic breasts" is concerning. But almost everything else about this feels promising. That said, there's definitely a nagging voice at the back of your head saying that promise cannot possibly be fulfilled. At the very least, there's something interesting happening with Tina Fey here, right?

6. Birdman

A Michael Keaton comeback? Good. A slowed-down version of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" reminding you of The Social Network's teaser? Weird tonal shifts and garish colors? An A+ cast? All good.

5. Dear White People

Might we direct your attention to the "THUMBS UP if you love black people!" notification on this YouTube clip? The promotion game on this hit comedy out of Sundance is on point.

4. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

Even if you've read the books and know full well what happens in the aftermath of Catching Fire's Quarter Quell, still that first shot of Peeta standing loyally by President Snow's side is a punch to the gut.

3. Wild

If you are not here for the Reese Witherspoon Proves Herself (Again) thousand-mile journey on display here, we quite simply have nothing for you.

2. The Skeleton Twins

Replace everything about Reese Witherspoon in the above paragraph with "Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader lip-sycnhing Jefferson Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now (Love Theme from Mannequin)," and we're set.

1. Gone Girl

More than just an incredibly tense, mysterious, and intriguing movie trailer (David Fincher movies make for uniformly excellent trailers), this Gone Girl clip is a pretty fascinating window into the possible avenues Fincher took for handling the delicate shifts in Gillian Flynn's novel. One bold prediction based on what's on display here? Kim Dickens is going to get a nice career boost from this movie.

The Reigning Single Best Moment from Any Current Trailer

Here's where every week we bring you a single moment from a trailer that, irrespective of the overall strength of the trailer, nonetheless will probably get us to see that movie anyway. For our first week, we're going with the second teaser for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1, the one where Jeffrey Wright's Beetie interrupts President Snow's propaganda announcement to alert everyone that the revolution is coming. But before he does, Johanna Mason (Jena Malone) throws out a spoiler alert in the form of the sassiest elbow in Panem:

News reports are focusing on the Germanwings pilot's possible depression, following a familiar script in the wake of mass killings. But the evidence shows violence is extremely rare among the mentally ill.